Snapshot 7.12. Understanding War-Making Powers
Integrated ELA/Literacy and History–Social Science/Civics in Grade TwelveIn Mr. Jackson’s twelfth-grade government class, students have been discussing the
power of the executive branch, and, in particular, the war-making powers of the presidency.
Today, the students will first review the president’s Commander in Chief powers outlined in
the Constitution. With knowledge of that constitutional authority as a foundation for their
investigations, students will then consider the war-making power exercised by American
presidents during the Vietnam War. In addition to the Constitution, students will review
both the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution and War Powers Act to develop their own answer to the
following question:
How did the President’s war making powers evolve over the course of the
Vietnam War?
After Mr. Jackson reminds his students that the power to declare, make, and fund a war is
a shared responsibility between the executive and legislative branches of the government, as
outlined in the Constitution, the students consider an excerpt from Article II, Section 2 of the
U.S. Constitution. As students read, they focus on the verbs and nouns in the passage to help
answer the focus question for the passage: How does the Constitution define the President’s
powers in matters of war? Next, the students read and then deconstruct an excerpt from
Article I of the U.S. Constitution to respond to a second question: How does the Constitution
define Congressional power in matters of war?
With a grounding in the relevant Constitutional authority for war-making, the students
then turn to three primary sources from the Vietnam War era: The Tonkin Gulf Resolution,
The Legality of United States Participation in the Defense of Vietnam (Department of State),
and The War Powers Act. Each document includes support strategies to foster student
understanding of complex and dense text. For example, with the Tonkin Gulf Resolution,
students use a graphic organizer to understand the construction of the argument for
military intervention and the necessity for executive action. In The Legality of United States
Participation in the Defense of Vietnam, the students consider the use of reference devices (or
ways of referring readers backward or forward in a text) to break down abstract and complex
text.
After completing their individual analyses of each primary source, students compare their
findings by considering how each document defined executive war-making powers in order
to turn once again to their initial focus question: How did the President’s war making powers
evolve over the course of the Vietnam War? Then, using evidence gleaned from the primary
sources to inform and substantiate their claims and refute counterclaims, students work
together in small groups to write the first draft of an argumentative essay responding to the
focus question.Resources
Tonkin Gulf Resolution; Public Law 88–408, 88th Congress, August 7, 1964; General Records of the United States
Government; Record Group 11; National Archives.
The Legality of United States Participation in the Defense of Viet-Nam, March 4, 1966. Legal Memorandum prepared
by Leonard C. Meeker, Legal Adviser of the Department of State; submitted to the Senate Committee on Foreign
Relations on March 8, 1966.786 | Chapter 7 Grades 11 and 12